REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Copenhagen Solution
Why global warming should rank at the bottom of the world's priorities.
WSJ.com
Saturday, June 11, 2005 12:01 a.m.
We're not sure what motivated Tony Blair's visit this week to the White House; he came to town with a losing hand--and played it. The British Prime Minister wants President Bush to commit the U.S. to billions in debt relief to the world's poorest countries through a mechanism called the International Finance Facility, which the Administration rightfully considers a nonstarter. Mr. Blair also wants the U.S. to sign on to his views on global warming. This is tilting at windmills in more ways than the Prime Minister may realize.
Instead, what Mr. Blair mainly got was a commitment from the Administration to release another $674 million in humanitarian relief--most of it food aid--for Africa, above the $3.2 billion per year it already provides. This is not nothing. By one estimate, the additional money will help feed 14 million people at risk of starvation in East Africa for a year. But if Messrs. Bush and Blair are to avoid falling out publicly at next month's G-8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, they will need to do more than split their differences. A better approach to thinking about development is required.
Fortunately one exists, called the Copenhagen Consensus. The brainchild of Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, the Consensus is an attempt by leading economists (including three Nobelists) to set priorities for spending on development using traditional cost-benefit analysis. "We need to know what we should do first," says Mr. Lomborg. "Not being willing to prioritize does not make the problem go away: It simply becomes less clear--and, most likely, more expensive to solve in the end."
To that end, Mr. Lomborg and his colleagues looked at more than a dozen development challenges, ranging from malnutrition to water sanitation to migration to climate change. The results: Development dollars are best spent on the control of HIV-AIDS, principally through condom distribution and information efforts, followed by providing micronutrients (vitamin and mineral pills) to the malnourished, lowering barriers to trade, and controlling malaria. Taking action in these areas, the authors believe, could do the most good for the greatest number of people in the shortest span of time.
By contrast, the three projects the Consensus put at the bottom of the list all had to do with the threat (which the Consensus considers serious) of global warming. Adopting the Kyoto Protocol to curb carbon dioxide emissions, for instance, might reduce warming to 6.1 degrees centigrade by the year 2300, compared with an anticipated 7.3 degree warming if nothing is done. This "achievement"--a world that is on average 1.2 degrees cooler than it otherwise would be in 300 years--comes with a price tag of about $94 trillion (in 1990 dollars).
"The benefits [of tackling climate change] are far into the future and the substantial costs are up front and immediate," notes Nobel Prize-winning economist Douglass North. "Given the uncertainties associated with both the projections and the consequences, climate change cannot compete with the other urgent issues we confront."
To some, of course, the very act of making a list of global priorities may seem invidious: Should we not do everything? As Mr. Lomborg acknowledges, in a perfect world we would.
But the world is not perfect, and the financial resources available for any such project are not infinite. Mr. Blair wants to see the annual development budget of the richest countries boosted to about 0.7% of GDP. We have our doubts on that score--what the developing world needs is better governance, not aid.
But if it is to be done, then the world's would-be benefactors have a responsibility to think through the consequences of how their taxpayers' money is spent. Devoting limited financial resources to a problem that's a few centuries off is both wasteful and unethical when there are lives to be saved now. When the President goes to Gleneagles next month, we hope he takes the spirit of Copenhagen with him.
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